


Mooring Rope

by BlackMajjicDuchess



Series: Namesake [16]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Bucket List, F/M, Family, Fear, Ocean, Travel, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-15
Updated: 2014-04-15
Packaged: 2018-01-19 13:26:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1471480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackMajjicDuchess/pseuds/BlackMajjicDuchess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I got the idea in my head one day to bring some of the Naruto characters face-to-face with the thing they were named after for the first time. I thought it might be fun. Also accepting challenges!</p><p>Stories will be posted separately but as part of the Namesake series.</p><p>Part 16: Mooring Rope</p><p>Tsunade faces her fear of the ocean to honor her grandparents' dream</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mooring Rope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ishimaru_Asuka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ishimaru_Asuka/gifts).



> To issue a challenge, just comment on one of the stories in the series with the name you'd like to see done. The only stipulation is that it HAS to be a name that has a meaning, and it has to be a meaning that is something one can encounter. Example: Madara means "spots." What the heck am I supposed to do with that? On the other hand, Naruto's name refers to some kind of fish cake, which is something he could confront somehow.
> 
> Tsunade challenge from Ishimaru_Asuka
> 
> Tsunade = Mooring Rope

“If I could do anything I wanted…” he thought, one finger pressed to his lips in deep thought, musing aloud. “Ah!” he exclaimed with a tap of fist to palm. “I’d have to say that I’d love to sail across the sea.”

“Why the sea?” she asked, confused. Her grandfather’s people had been called the Senju of the Forest. They’d always been tucked away in verdant, lush woods, surrounded by the tittering of the woodland animals and the comforting hug of the trees. It was a place to hide, to relax, and to thrive.

The ocean, on the other hand, was an entirely different beast. Whereas the trees were a community of living things, the ocean was one, giant, dangerous mass of water. It smelled sick, tinged with salt and the rot of fish. It roared, howled, and hissed as it fought itself into choppy waves. The currents claimed the lives of many, sucking them down beneath the water, crushing, drowning, and breaking asunder. Why the leader of the Forest Clan had a fascination with the cold danger of the ocean escaped her.

His smile was bright and mysterious when he answered. “Your grandmother’s from there.”

“Grandma’s from the ocean?” she asked, eyes wide as an owl’s. In her young mind, she imagined her gentle, compassionate grandmother being belched forth from the waves themselves. Or maybe… “Is she a mermaid?” That would make her _infinitely_ more cool.

Hashirama laughed. Everyone loved it when her grandfather laughed. There was never any hint of mocking in it. One only got the sense that everything in the world made him happy, so delighted that even the smallest deviation toward the positive spectrum tipped him over into a fountain of chuckles. “No, Tsunade,” he corrected gently, hugging her close in his arms. “There’s an island out there, surrounded by whirlpools and dolphins and sharks—and probably mermaids, too—past that horizon. There’s a Shinobi village there, different from the rest. They are very powerful, and strong, like your grandmother.”

“An island, huh?” She tried to imagine such a thing, but she couldn’t imagine a full sized island large enough to contain a village. What she did manage to conjure up was a desolate rock with only her grandmother and a single hut on it, surrounded by a storm of nothing but sharks and sea monsters. “Grandma must be really strong,” she whispered, mostly to herself. She’d have to be, to fight a legion of sharks all by herself.

“The strongest!” he replied cheerfully, pride lacing his voice.

* * *

 

Ten years after his death, she found herself crying for no reason. It was her grandmother who caught her at it, fussing at her for watering down her meal. “Those tears of yours will ruin your breakfast, Tsunade,” she chastised. “Unless you like sea-bacon,” she added with a smile.

It reminded her of their conversation. “Grandma, what’s the sea like?” she asked. She had never gotten past the storms, the sharks, and the cold, wet stink. She’d avoided the sea at all costs. Its chill and its danger held no allure for her whatsoever. Clearly, she’d gotten that trait from her grandfather’s people, not the Uzumaki.

“Well,” she said with a dramatic flourish, her smile nearly as bright as her husband's had been. “I hadn’t thought about the ocean in quite some time. I had promised Hashi we would sail together, once upon a time, before he died.” Tsunade must have started crying again, and it must have been because he died, and her grandmother noticed. “It still saddens me, too, Tsunade. But the best way to continue to love a person after they’ve died is to honor their last wishes… their hopes, and dreams.” She returned back to the question. “The sea is huge, beautiful, and teeming with life.”

She blinked. Life? She hadn’t thought that anything really lived there… besides the sharks, of course. In her mind, it was always a barren, black mass, teeming with nothing but death and destructive power. “Life?” she echoed.

“Oh yes!” Mito exclaimed with enthusiasm. “There are more kinds of life living in the ocean than the land and sky combined! Fish, turtles, dolphins, sharks, shellfish, shrimp, whales…”

“What’s a whale?”

“Whales are giant animals that live in the ocean. Some of them are bigger than this house!”

Fifteen years old, and her eyes still grew wide at this. “Wow,” she breathed. It was the first time she’d ever felt the draw of the waves.

* * *

 

_“The best way to continue to love a person after they’ve died is to honor their last wishes… their hopes, and dreams.”_

_“If I could do anything I wanted, I’d have to say that I’d love to sail across the sea..._ _Your grandmother’s from there.”_

* * *

 

 _I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you died, Grandma. I wasn’t there for Grandfather, either._ Standing on the deck of the _Whirlpool Butterfly_ , staring back at the shore, was an awkward feeling, and scary. She had never wanted to see the see, but her grandparents had had a certain love for it, so it couldn’t be all that bad.

So far, it was both good and bad. The sway beneath the soles of her feet were jarring, and she was sure she was going to be sick at some point. But if she ignored the fears that already formed a nauseating pit in her stomach, it could almost feel like the days long ago when her grandmother rocked her to sleep. She shut her eyes and imagined it… and it comforted her somewhat. The cries of gulls and kingfisher birds were loud and obnoxious, but the sunlight that glinted off their wings as they dove and kited was exciting to watch. The roar of the waves beyond the horizon still frightened her, but the shush and chortle of the smaller ones on shore were reassuring, almost as if they were trying to tell her that their bigger cousins weren’t so bad.

 _I can do this,_ she thought, staring at the rope that was being unwound from the posts on shore. As the rope was thrown to the deck, severing her connection to dry land, she felt her connection to the two most important people of her life strengthen. A change came over her as the shore disappeared from sight. The rocking of the deck was her grandmother, telling her that everything was going to work itself out and not to worry. The laughing of the gulls was her grandfather, amazed and delighted at the leaping dolphins and the swell of waves. If she shut her eyes, she could almost believe that they were there. When she opened them again, the ocean had become far more beautiful than it ever was frightening. 

"I love you, too, Grandma and Grandpa," she said softly. 

 


End file.
